This is a transcript for the video Graduate Diploma in Migration Law and Practice
00:00
The webinar will really take two forms:
00:03
The first part is really the most important part for you as participants
00:07
to really learn more about the course. I’m sure many of you
00:11
have done a lot of homework, you’ve looked at our website,
00:14
you’ve thought about this for a long time
00:18
so i would now like to hand over to Christine Giles. Christine
00:24
is a program head of the graduate diploma of migration
00:27
law and practice. We are very lucky to have Christine
00:30
as our program head. Christine was instrumental
00:34
in UTS Law school being awarded the approval of offering the graduate
00:40
diploma in migration law and practice which commenced in 2018.
00:45
Christine is extremely experienced in both migration advice work
00:49
as a member of the tribunal and now as an
00:52
academic or a practitioner so Christine leads a team of practitioners
01:00
and some that are in practice and some that come in to do the
01:05
assessments to take you through the six subjects in the graduate diploma. So i’ll
01:09
hand over now to Christine to give you some more
01:12
information about the course.
01:13
So if you’ve done your research you will know that there are some steps
01:17
that need to be taken to become a
01:19
migration agent. If you are not currently a legal
01:24
practitioner, a lawyer holding a current legal practicing
01:28
certificate, then there are two knowledge
01:31
requirements that must be met to be able to register
01:34
as a migration agent. The first is the graduate diploma in
01:38
migration law and practice, and as Maxine said UTS was very fortunate to be
01:42
approved as one of the providers of this particular knowledge requirement.
01:48
The second knowledge requirement once you
01:51
graduate with your graduate diploma is the capstone
01:56
assessment and i’ll be talking more about that i’m sure quite a few of you
02:00
have heard some very nasty things about it. I’m giving you some good news about
02:04
it actually pretty exciting news as far as we’re
02:07
concerned. Now they are the knowledge requirements
02:11
there are also many other requirements and i urge you to familiarize yourself
02:15
with those before you spend money on obtaining a
02:20
graduate diploma. For example if you have a serious criminal history then you are
02:27
not going to meet the requirements as a fit and proper person for
02:30
registration so you would really be wasting your money
02:34
undertaking this program if your goal is to register as a migration agent.
02:38
Equally the language skills, the English language skills are very high for
02:42
registration as a migration agent and equally high for passing the
02:47
capstone assessment. So if you’re not at that stage with your
02:50
language skills then you certainly need to focus on that
02:54
immediately. Now there are other requirements that
02:57
have to be met, the link is there but go to the migration agents
03:02
registration authorities site and familiarise yourself with those
03:06
requirements just to make sure that there are no
03:08
unpleasant surprises. You don’t want to get through
03:11
the knowledge requirements and then find that you can’t meet the other
03:14
requirements. So with some exceptions anyone who
03:20
provides immigration assistance must be a
03:23
registered migration agent otherwise they are committing a very
03:27
serious criminal offence. And we are an accredited provider of one
03:34
of those knowledge requirements and as i said there are many others.
03:40
Our slide is still saying australian citizenship but australian
03:46
permanent residents are… but there are as i said already a number
03:50
of requirements when you get to registration stage so
03:54
please do familiarize yourself with those.
03:59
Now why choose us? There’s lots of reasons here on this slide but when i
04:03
tell you about our capstone results i think you’ll
04:06
be even more excited. But it is a very practical course
04:12
You’ll see in a slide to come that we are using a learning
04:19
platform called Canvas and our program is very interactive so
04:23
what you are doing virtually from day one
04:26
is doing the type of tasks that you would be doing in
04:30
practice. So you’re learning what you need to know
04:32
to be able to advise a non-citizen on their rights to obtain
04:37
a visa and what to do if something goes wrong.
04:41
So as maxine said i’m the Director of the
04:43
program. My background, i wasn’t a tribunal member i was
04:47
actually the Immigration Ombudsman in
04:51
Queensland, but my background, i was a barrister for many years.
04:55
I worked in private practice as a migration agent and for one of the
04:59
immigration legal services and then i took on a four-year
05:03
appointment to do the role of the immigration ombudsman in queensland
05:08
and since then i have been teaching at various universities.
05:15
Before the graduate diploma I worked for Griffith University
05:19
and i also worked at the ANU program but i’m pretty sure we’ve got the best.
05:25
UTS has the best graduate diploma and that’s partly because of our
05:29
wonderful Canvas platform and our very interactive program.
05:35
So besides me we have practitioner lecturers
05:38
and they are all currently practitioners. They’re very good teachers as well
05:42
but they are working in migration law day in day out
05:46
and they can share with you their war stories and i can share with you some
05:51
very special insights that i gained
05:55
in the ombudsman’s role. So we do focus very much on combining theory with
06:02
practice. And as it says there you will be able to
06:05
complete the course within a year. Our capstone preparation module
06:10
in our final subject is complementary, you don’t pay anything
06:14
extra for that. And what it means is you are going to
06:17
know what you need to know to succeed not only in the final module
06:22
in our program but also beyond that going on through
06:26
to the capstone assessment. And it is very flexible as i said
06:32
everything is recorded you can just work through the pages in
06:34
Canvas at your own pace and watch the recording if you are not
06:40
able to participate in a live online class. So this is the
06:44
structure of our program. If you’ve looked at some others you’ll
06:47
see that they offer the program in eight subjects rather than six. We
06:52
were very fortunate to get approval from MARA to
06:55
offer it in six subjects which makes it much more
07:00
practical for you to take two subjects per session
07:05
for three sessions and still complete the
07:09
graduate diploma in 12 months. So you and students commencing the
07:15
following session are very fortunate because
07:17
you can see there on that chart that all subjects are offered
07:21
three times a year and that means you can do
07:24
the first two subjects in your first
07:27
session you can do the second two subjects in your second session
07:32
and you can finish up with your third and you will be finished within a year.
07:36
Now you’re going to need to add another probably six months onto the end of that
07:40
anyway to get through your capstone assessment so
07:45
we really do encourage you to take your time to take these subjects as they were
07:50
designed because they do scaffold on each other.
07:53
The course gets harder as you progress through it and it’s
07:57
really important that you get the most out of
07:59
every subject. It’s no point just scraping a pass
08:03
because when you get onto that capstone assessment
08:06
the pass mark is 65 percent so your goal in this program needs to be
08:12
a credit or higher to have some confidence
08:15
that you will be able to cope with that capstone assessment.
08:18
But i will be talking about that more shortly. So our very first subject 78300
08:24
is a law for non-lawyers subject so if you have no background in law please
08:29
don’t worry this subject has been designed especially for you.
08:33
It gives you all the fundamental knowledge that you need to
08:36
understand and be able to interpret migration law
08:40
and to be able to apply it to your clients’ circumstances
08:43
and to be able to explain to analyze it reach conclusions and explain all that
08:49
so that’s all part of that introductory subject.
08:54
If you hold a current practicing certificate if you’re a lawyer
08:59
you can apply prior to enrollment for recognition of prior learning and you
09:04
can be exempt from 78300 and 78305 and just do the core subjects in the middle.
09:10
But if you don’t have any background in law at all
09:13
then you will be completing the six subjects and that first subject will
09:17
give you a really good introduction, to progress.
09:21
Now in 78301 we look at each and every visa subclass. Now that doesn’t mean that
09:26
you’re expected to know everything about them or who’s eligible
09:30
for them and who’s not but it’s an introduction so that you are
09:34
aware of what the visas are that are available.
09:38
We also look at many common concepts so who can apply for a visa who can be
09:44
included in the application can it only be applied for from within
09:48
australia or can can only be applied for from outside australia? Whether there
09:52
has to be a sponsor for the visa whether there has to be some sort of
09:57
bond security bond so these concepts
10:01
are common to either some visa subclasses or all these
10:05
sub classes and we cover all those in this australia’s visa
10:11
system subject. So that by the time you are ready to
10:14
progress to the next two subjects where we do look in detail at every
10:19
single visa you’ll be prepared for that because
10:22
you’ll know the basics. You will know about sponsorship
10:26
you will know whether an assurance of support is
10:30
required you’ll know who a member of the family unit is who can be
10:34
included and who can’t. You’ll know about the one fails all fail rule that means if
10:39
for some visas if there are members of the family unit who can’t pass the
10:43
character or health requirements then no one can get that visa. So you’ll
10:48
be well prepared to move on to those next two subjects.
10:54
78304 is my favorite. It’s what can go wrong where we learn how migration
11:01
advisors can actually help people when their dealings with the
11:04
migration department go bad. So if the visa application is refused or
11:09
worse if they hold a visa and it’s cancelled
11:11
if they’re under threat of being removed from australia
11:15
we look at all those processes and procedures:
11:19
how they can challenge it, whether they can challenge it
11:22
by way of merits review or judicial review so that’s what we cover in 78304.
11:28
Complex content but very interesting and always the content we are covering
11:34
will be in the news while we are doing it so generally
11:38
everyone loves the subject and even though they find it they always agree
11:42
that it’s the most complex because they’ve enjoyed it so much.
11:45
They generally do pretty well for such a difficult subject.
11:49
And the very final subject 78305 is quite different. It’s a practical
11:54
subject so it’s all about setting up your business
11:59
best practice for dealing with your clients. We look at ethics
12:02
and i do the final module on advocacy and submission writing.
12:07
And then we move on to our capstone preparation
12:10
and we do practice interviews to help prepare
12:17
the 78305 students for their oral exam because there is an oral exam for 78305.
12:25
These are some of our practitioner lecturers
12:30
as i said all practicing all very respected migration agents
12:36
immigration lawyers and you will get to know them very well.
12:40
We also have a number of practitioners who do our marking and they will
12:45
provide you with some valuable insight and feedback when
12:49
they do that. So you have lots of experts to learn
12:52
from. Our teaching and learning approach is
12:57
very much making sure that you are work ready and
13:01
practically orientated when you get out because
13:04
apart from any other reason you’ve got to be in a position to
13:08
pass that capstone assessment or else it’s all to no avail isn’t it. So very
13:14
very practical assessment tasks and very focused on making sure that you
13:21
know what you need to do to practice in this area. So all
13:25
our subjects align with what are called the occupational competency standards
13:30
for migration agents. You’ll learn more about that
13:32
when you enroll and you’ll study them in 78305
13:36
because the capstone assessment is said to be testing those occupational
13:41
competency standards. So if you’re interested in getting a
13:45
head start you can go and have a look you can download them from the MARA site
13:49
and see what the MARA thinks is important
13:53
for a migration advisor. It is very flexible because
13:59
everything is online, Canvas is a fantastic
14:04
platform i’m sure that you’ll enjoy it. We’ve got lots of fun activities as well
14:11
and so basically what happens is you’ll read a page which has a bit of text a
14:15
bit of information and then you’ll do one of a number of
14:18
different types of fun activities to make sure that you’ve
14:22
understood it and to consolidate your learning.
14:25
So it’s been very popular. We started on Blackboard
14:29
and last session was the first session that we had all subjects on
14:34
Canvas and now we can just work on making them even better.
14:39
Now here’s another opportunity that’s open to
14:43
students who enroll in our program we are collaborating with
14:47
Dr Laura Smith-Khan who is undertaking research
14:55
in how migration professionals interact with their clients.
14:59
So she is working with us on our client communications project.
15:02
She’s presented at some of our online workshops which i’ll talk about shortly
15:08
but more importantly students in the program
15:11
have the option to opt in to her research
15:15
and she will then record and view some of your practice interviews throughout
15:21
the program and she’ll give you some feedback. Now she’s not a migration
15:25
expert she’s all about client communication
15:30
but the students who worked with her, when they’re working with her this
15:33
session, have found it very valuable so we’re
15:36
very fortunate to do that. And you’ll also find there’s lots of other exciting
15:40
resources in our client communications project to help you
15:43
understand exactly how you should be approaching
15:47
interviewing your clients taking instructions from them and giving advice.
15:51
Now let me tell you a little bit about our capstone assessment preparation
15:54
program. As i said there’s no additional cost
15:57
to participate in this we’ve also changed the assessment for 78305
16:03
to an oral exam that is in the same format
16:07
as the capstone oral and fortunately we have had to advocate
16:12
very hard with the MARA and we were only allowed to meet with the
16:16
college of law for the first time this year.
16:19
It’s an independent assessment and the MARA has been
16:22
very adamant that there should be no communication between the universities
16:26
and the college of law that provides the capstone on behalf of
16:31
the MARA but they did allow us to have a meeting
16:36
with them and we’ve had a lot of changes made
16:40
since the first capstones – the number of questions have been reduced
16:44
the weighting has been adjusted and for the oral
16:48
instead of it being an interview it is now a discussion with the assessor about
16:53
how you would conduct an interview which is a lot easier really than
16:57
actually conducting the interview and it’s a lot fairer because
17:00
what we found was with the reports we were getting
17:03
was that the assessor wasn’t behaving like a client at all because they had
17:07
all these questions that they wanted to see whether you knew the answer to
17:11
but there were questions that a client would never ask.
17:14
And so it’s much fairer now that that the candidates know exactly what
17:19
they’re in for and i think it’s not quite as difficult to actually
17:23
explain to the assessor that i would commence
17:27
the interview by introducing myself explaining my role
17:31
building some rapport with the client that sort of thing.
17:35
So there are a number of tasks that are set up as practice tasks
17:42
and these are based on the sample papers made available by the college of
17:46
law. So that was a hard won concession and we’re very
17:50
pleased to see those sample papers go up and that’s what we’ve based our
17:54
practice activities on. Practice interviews: our students
18:00
pair up with another student in 78305, there are two different scenarios, each
18:06
takes a turn of playing the advisor or the
18:09
client and if they have opted into Laura’s
18:13
program Laura will give them some advice. But then you have the opportunity of
18:18
joining the online workshop and repeating a practice
18:23
interview in front of me and Tom which i’m told is a little
18:26
bit scary but we will give you some feedback too
18:29
not just on your client communication skills but on the content
18:33
in terms of migration law and policy. So practice interviews are part of
18:37
preparing for the capstone but also they prepare you for your oral exam because
18:42
there is a client interview as part of the 78305
18:47
assessment. We have a capstone strategy online class
18:52
which is really successful very popular i think i had nearly
18:59
90 people attend last time and that is open to both our graduates and our
19:03
current students. so our graduates come back and tell our
19:06
current students how they are studying, they might have already passed
19:10
the written component and be waiting for the oral component
19:15
and that’s a really valuable session. And finally
19:18
your assessment for 78305 70 percent of the assessment
19:22
is an oral exam where you have that pre-interview discussion
19:26
you also do the client interview and then you need to write up a file note of
19:31
that interview. So that’s when you get to 78305
19:36
the alternative to the oral exam in 78305 is to undertake an internship.
19:42
Now we have, even in this Covid-19 situation we have over a quarter of our
19:47
students undertaking internships at the moment
19:50
in 78305 and that is certainly an excellent way to prepare
19:56
yourself both for practice and for the capstone
19:58
assessment. So that’s an alternative to the
20:03
oral exam. The internship too is worth 70 percent
20:07
you get 30 percent of marks for attending at the internship 10 full days
20:13
over the course of the subject and 40 percent of the marks for a journal of
20:20
writing up your experiences and comparing them with the occupational
20:25
competency standards and what you’ve learned in the program.
20:27
so our students actually organize their own internships we have a very small
20:31
database of hosts based in sydney that we are
20:34
building up and if you’re already working in the
20:37
field then it’s quite okay to do your internship with your own
20:41
employer it doesn’t have to be an unpaid one so that’s fine too.
20:45
What we have found today is that most of our students who have
20:49
done internships who are not doing them with their own employer
20:52
have been offered the opportunity to stay on with their host which is
20:56
wonderful so if you can do an internship then
20:59
certainly consider it but if not you have an alternate assessment
21:03
available. There are no 100% exams so for the first
21:08
five subjects the exams are written exams not oral
21:12
and they carry 40% of the mark for all subjects.
21:16
We give you an incentive to participate in all these wonderful
21:21
interactive activities because there’s up to 10 marks
21:26
available for participating in all the activities that
21:29
are available there. We have some module quizzes there are
21:33
four modules in each of the six subjects and at the end of each module you have
21:38
the opportunity to undertake a very low stakes assessment
21:43
so there are five questions in the quiz they’re only with half a mark each so
21:47
it’s only worth 2.5 marks there are four quizzes all up so
21:51
it’s 10 marks in total but it’s a really good way to check your
21:55
own progress see how you how you’re tracking before
21:58
you get on to the bigger assessments. The other 40% in those first five
22:03
subjects is made up of a practice file and you will undertake tasks as part of
22:09
that practice file for a virtual client. You’ll be introduced to
22:13
the client in a couple of non-assessible activities and then you’ll move on to
22:18
the assessible practice file tasks and the final practice file task is actually
22:23
one of the questions on the exam so we do lots of case studies we do
22:27
lots of analysis of tribunal cases and court cases
22:34
and we use case-based scenarios for our assessment tasks our
22:41
online discussions our activities so it’s very practical.
22:47
Thank you Christine so yes welcome
22:51
back and now i just want to spend a little bit of time
22:54
speaking about support and resources that are available to our students
22:59
including our online students. Now of course i know some of our participants
23:04
and some of our future students don’t live
23:06
in the sydney area and so may not have the
23:10
ability to access our buildings but if you are
23:14
in the sydney area or you travel to sydney
23:17
it’s important that you keep in mind that all students that are undertaking
23:21
this course and our other online courses are very much a student as our on-campus
23:27
students so the same resources the same support the same facilities are
23:31
available to you. So if you came in to the
23:34
university on a weekend you would have access to the library and the reading
23:38
room and to other facilities that are
23:40
available. As Christine said we’re very lucky to move into a beautiful new
23:45
building, Building 2 on Broadway we were in that building for
23:49
a couple of weeks before we went into lockdown and it’s a lovely
23:55
space there are student spaces there we’re also in the same building as the
23:59
library and we’re right next door to
24:02
Tower 1 where some of our student facilities are.
24:05
So as Christine’s already talked about with the optional
24:11
workshops for students that have been held when we have been able to
24:16
in previous semesters on campus it’s a great opportunity for
24:20
students to get to know each other and to form study groups.
24:24
As we all know now online learning can
24:27
deliver the same opportunities for students to form study groups it doesn’t
24:32
have to be on campus but that facility is there
24:37
for you if you are able to access campus, particularly in the new building
24:43
which as i said houses our library and a beautiful large reading room.
24:48
but there’s also lots of student spaces. The law
24:52
faculty is located on levels 14 15 and 16 so the top three levels and
24:58
level 14 is our student space level so we have our moot court
25:02
our trial courts and areas for students to
25:05
either study together or just to have some social time or some personal time
25:11
so when we do come back onto
25:14
campus please my main message to
25:17
you is that you are very much part of the UTS
25:20
community even though you are undertaking an online course.
25:26
So this is more information which is really important
25:30
particularly i think for students that haven’t studied
25:34
for a period of time and might be a little bit anxious about
25:38
what it’s like to return to study. i undertook some postgraduate study 20
25:44
or so years after i had completed my law degree
25:47
and i share with you that i was very anxious about coming back to study.
25:51
So the law faculty is very lucky that we have
25:55
a Director of Students which is a role that not all
25:58
law schools have. Stuart Lowe is our director of students you can see
26:03
Stuart’s photograph there and his role the director of students role is to
26:07
really be the face between student body and the faculty. He’s
26:13
not a counselor he’s not a careers counselor he’s an academic
26:17
he’s a practitioner and what Stewart is able to do for students is to
26:22
give them some advice to work with them to give them some guidance around
26:26
their study plans, around taking leave of absence.
26:30
i know there’s been several questions tonight in the q a in the chat
26:34
about how many subjects you could undertake
26:38
in the graduate diploma and i know Christine’s given some very clear advice
26:43
about what is reasonable, what enables you
26:46
to really have that deep learning and to
26:50
be able to understand interpret and apply the complexities of migration law.
26:55
So students will go and see Stuart about either dropping a subject
26:59
about taking a leave of absence about slowing down.
27:02
We’re very lucky with the migration law and practice course that is also offered
27:06
over summer and many of our students that are doing
27:09
courses with summer offerings will slow down during that autumn and spring
27:14
sessions and then be able to have a little bit more space and time to study
27:18
over summer. Now of course this has been
27:21
proven to us during COVID-19 our director of students is accessible
27:25
doesn’t have to be a face to face and indeed it’s not at the moment
27:28
a face-to-face meeting Stuart’s contactable by phone
27:32
by Zoom by email etc so we encourage all
27:38
students to to have that just to have someone that
27:41
they have those admin questions a little bit more than an
27:45
admin question though they really want some personal contact it’s not just a
27:49
simple question that could go to our student administration
27:52
unit. The second resource that we have in particular i think
27:56
again relevant for students who may not have studied for a while
27:59
just trying to get their head around how do i start how do i begin that first
28:03
assessment and where are the resources available to
28:06
give me some confidence about being able to
28:12
understand interpret and to be able to apply their learning.
28:16
So UTS helps as you can see on the slide there is our higher education language
28:21
presentation support unit it’s located in Building 1 so it’s right next to
28:26
our building in Building 2 and i invite you to have a
28:30
look at the website after this evening’s webinar. You can work with
28:34
HELPS they also work remotely and they’re
28:37
obviously becoming very expert at doing remote support and resourcing
28:41
for students but i think particularly for students that are feeling
28:47
that they just need to have – not so much about the content
28:51
about migration law about migration practice – but
28:54
around the structure of assessments around
28:57
the thinking back into being a student. And one of the strategies that will
29:01
really support you to be able to manage time to be able to
29:05
manage or really unbundle what your assessment tasks are about
29:11
which i would recommend helps. And then our career service
29:15
is – and Christine’s done a lot of work with the career service for
29:19
the migration law and practice students so careers – is available
29:24
to obviously to all our students whether they be face-to-face students or online
29:28
students. And they’ve done a lot of work in recent
29:31
years with internships as Christine has said students have
29:36
the ability to do an internship it’s optional
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but what we’re trying to promote is internships and
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careers reaching out. As you would know of those
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that might be working in the profession many migration advisors
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are sole practitioners so unlike say in legal practice there could be very large
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firms and yes there are some firms of migration
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advisors and it’s not quite so easy to locate internships but it’s as
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christine said our students are doing really well. But Careers are there to
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assist with internships they’re there to assist in
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skills around applying for jobs around career planning
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and we have a postgraduate careers advisor
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in the career service would be for students
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that are undertaking the postgraduate migration law and practice
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course and again very well placed they share the same building as we do.
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So if you are in sydney or if you’re coming to sydney you can make an
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appointment to see them they’ve also got a lot of resources
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on their website one including a professional
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mentoring program that they have that they’ve established
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about a year ago so we’re very lucky to have such a quite
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a a broad service.
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Fees now you have probably when you’re looking at whether you’ve got the
31:00
the time the ability and the financial resources to
31:04
undertake this course so you may well be aware of what our fees
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are they’re there they’re worked out on the slide they’re worked out on a
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credit point basis the total of the 36 credit points so six
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subjects of six credit points is twenty one thousand five hundred
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dollars. our fees are competitive with the other
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law schools that offer the graduate diploma
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migration law and practice and fee help is available for
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this course. There are no commonwealth supported places
31:36
for the graduate diploma in migration law and practice but fee help
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is available for any of our UTS graduates out there that have
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studied with us. Doesn’t have to be in law it can be in
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any other discipline or course across UTS.
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You’re also entitled to the 10 percent fee savings so
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that’s something to keep in mind and this does come down to the
31:59
the planning that we recommend around the progression – how many subjects you do
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in the graduate diploma. You can enroll in subjects and then
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approximately four weeks after semester commences we have our census
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date all universities have a census date and you can withdraw from a subject or
32:19
subjects before the census date and if you do that
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then you don’t, you’re not charged for that subject nor do you receive
32:29
any academic repercussions so you don’t
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fail the subject. Students can do that and some
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students i think do do that to get an idea of what the workload’s
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like to get an idea of when the assessment tasks are
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due they’re four weeks into semester they have a
32:46
they have then a much better ability to see what the workload will be like. Now
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we’re not suggesting that you enroll in six subjects and then withdraw before
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the census date and it’s most important that you do
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withdraw before the census date if you are going to because once that census
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date – as i said it’s a government-imposed
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date that all law schools have – once that census state ticks over and
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if you withdraw then then there will be a financial and an
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academic penalty excepting very rare circumstances.
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There’s more information as the slide tells you about fee help and
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our calculator.